Colonel (Retired) John E. Chere, Jr.
This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited. Egyptian, Jordanian, and United States Special Operations Forces complete security checks during military operations in urban terrain training, which was part of Exercise Bright Star 18 at Muhamed Naguib Military Base, September 10, 2018. Exercise Bright Star 18 or BS18 is a multilateral exercise to strengthen relationships with Egyptian partners as well as a forum for addressing relevant regional issues associated with enhancing regional security and cooperation, promoting coalition interoperability in irregular warfare, and improving interoperability throughout the full range of military operations. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Dawn M. Weber)
In the current environment of heightened scrutiny of all foreign assistance programs, it is imperative that practitioners of security cooperation (SC) across all organizations are better educated and equipped to negotiate an already complicated and competitive justification process for increasingly limited resources. Certainly, future program requests will be more deeply scrutinized to ensure all assistance requests are tightly aligned with the nation’s interest and evolving strategies. They must also be framed in precise language, with outcomes showing a high return on any U.S. investment.
This requires that Special Operations Forces (SOF)-SC practitioners and operators at all levels, including senior-level decision-makers, are armed with unique knowledge, language, and procedures that fall under security assistance (SA) and SC. According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, SC is defined as “All DoD interactions with foreign defense establishments to build defense relationships that promote specific U.S. security interests, develop allied and friendly military capabilities for self-defense and multinational operations, and provide U.S. forces with peacetime and contingency access to a host nation. Security Assistance is also an element of Security Cooperation, funded and authorized by the Department of State (DoS) to be administered by the Department of Defense (DoD). (1)
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